Other events

Agribusiness has come to mean different things to different audiences: a vehicle for technological modernization, the erosion of traditional values, or a mechanism for avoiding transparency. This paper reports research on the diffusion of the agribusiness model of business organisation across Western Europe in the postwar era. This paper explains why the diffusion of the agribusiness organizational model and the increase in poultry output were so deeply entwined across Europe. With poultry being the most perishable of food products, so poultry producers were most at risk of price volatility undermining their profitability. The agribusiness structure allowed markets to be internalized and so price volatility to be dramatically reduced. The paper concentrates on the US, UK and Italian case studies (the leading broiler producing nations) in some detail, and shows how the poultry sectors in each country adopted different technological solutions to the price volatility problem. In the US arms’ length contracts remained ubiquitous. In the UK supermarkets took on an intermediating role in the supply chain, which enabled the emerging poultry sector to invest in refrigeration technology. In Italy modernization was retarded until a novel form of refrigeration enabled the market to grow. In contrast to such evidence of diversity in technological trajectories, in all three countries the leading poultry producers internalized markets and adopted near identical agribusiness organizational structures. Agribusiness appears to have been adopted by agricultural producers in Western Europe in the postwar era because of the need to reduce price volatility in marketing perishable products rather than the need to exploit new technologies. Because price volatility threatened profits in the poultry sector the most, so agribusiness organizational structures diffused first in that agricultural sector.

Directions:

Due to preparation work for the MBS redevelopment project, access to the Harold Hankins building is no longer possible via the University Precinct Centre. Please use the main entrance of MBS West (Building Number 29 on the Campus Map) and take the lifts to the left of the main reception desk to the 6th floor. Turn left (‘access to Harold Hankins’ is signed) and go through the door at the end of the corridor and left through a second door into the stairwell. Go down a half flight of stairs following the sign ‘access to Harold Hankins’ and through the door into the Harold Hankins building and along the corridor until you get to the main stairwell/lift lobby. Take the lift to the tenth floor then turn right out of the lift.

Alternatively, if you are a member of the University you can email john.ashton-2@manchester.ac.uk for access to Harold Hankins building from the door on Booth Street West.